KARACHI: 5,000 cases pending for want of ML reports
By Nizamuddin Siddiqui
KARACHI, Oct 28: At least 5,000 medico-legal cases have been pending in various courts for want of chemical, histopathological and radiological reports for the last many months, it is learnt.
As a consequence, many of the criminals who should have been put behind bars by now are freely roaming about, in clear violation of the norms of justice.
The medico-legal cases are registered at three public-sector hospitals - the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, the Civil Hospital Karachi and the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
However, the chemical analyses are carried out only at the Sindh Services Hospital, the histopathological ones at the Dow University of Health Sciences, and the radiological ones at the Civil Hospital Karachi, the police surgeon told Dawn on Thursday.
Over the years backlogs have emerged at all these centres due to the sheer amount of work involved, according to some sources. Thousands of postmortem reports have remained incomplete for the last many months simply because the reports of various analyses - supposed to be carried out at the Services Hospital, the Civil Hospital or the Dow University - are still to be issued, according to Dr Zulfiquar Sial, the additional police surgeon.
Dr Sial said the issue was not a new one. "This issue was first taken notice of by Justice Amir Hani Muslim of the Sindh High Court, who had demanded a list of all the pending cases a few years ago. Justice Azizullah Memon had also sought some meaningful action in this regard."
He said the JPMC's director had recently expressed his desire that a radiologist and a histopathologist be appointed at his hospital who could deal with all the medico-legal cases reported there. "After the director's instructions, a summary was moved and yesterday we got an approval from the police surgeon for the appointment of a histopathologist in our office."
Answering a question, Dr Sial said the approval for appointment of a radiologist was awaited. "But we hope that the police surgeon will allow this very soon."
He added that if the JPMC's director posted a radiologist and in the meantime the police surgeon allowed the opening of a radiology section, he would have no objection to the handling at the JPMC of all relevant medico-legal cases reported there.
"This will save a lot of time because at present we send all cases involving X-Rays to the CHK for a report, which is often issued after six months or more. The step will be in the interest of the masses because, as you know, 'justice delayed is justice denied'."
When contacted Dr Irfan Qureshi, the police surgeon, acknowledged that thousands of cases remained pending for want of various analyses and reports. "Even though cases are pending in almost all the categories, the main problem is in the area of radiological analyses. This area constitutes more than 90 per cent of the pending cases."
The problem was an old one and careful planning was required to deal with the tricky issue, he said. Dr Qureshi told this reporter that the JPMC had a shortage of radiologists which was the main impediment to posting of a radiologist there who could do away with the hospital's pending cases.
JPMC Director Dr Mashoor Alam Shah told this reporter that he had requested the medico-legal officers in his hospital to make arrangements for opening a histopathological as well as a radiological section in their office.
"I think this should have been done a long time ago because in this manner at least the JPMC cases will not remain pending. At least these cases will not become a part of the backlog."
